Iraq

Iraq will have to stop using the US dollar in its financial transactions with Iran over Washington's sanctions against Tehran, Iraqi government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi told Sputnik on Thursday.

"The sanctions will influence, first of all, money transfers and banking operations in the US dollar. The sides will not use the US dollar," al-Hadithi said, adding that the move would result in a decline in trade between the two countries and thus affect the consumers.

The number of known executions around the world rose almost 15 percent in 2013, with the spike due in part to more executions in Iran and Iraq, a new Amnesty International report says.

The report released by the London-based rights group on Wednesday comes on the heels of a decision this week by an Egyptian court to sentence to death 529 alleged supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. The group has called the action “grotesque”.

More than 700 people died in violence in Iraq in February, not including nearly 300 reported deaths in western Anbar province, where security forces have been battling Sunni Muslim rebels since January, the United Nations said on Saturday.

The world body said local authorities had recorded 298 civilian deaths in Anbar, but that it could not confirm the figures independently due to the chaos in the desert region.

The National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad may reopen in April for the first time since it was closed after being partially damaged and ransacked in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion of the country, the director of the museum said Wednesday.

"We've been working on rebuilding the museum in cooperation with Italy," museum director Qais Rashid told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.

Iraq is losing between 5 and 8 percent of its gross domestic product to environmental degradation each year, while the amount of water available per person has dropped by more than half since the late 1970s, according to a new government study.

Backed by the United Nations and the World Bank, the report found that Iraq’s environment has suffered severe decline in recent years due to decades of war, a growing population and increasing pressure on natural resources.